


What Am I To You?

by Mistaken_exchange



Category: Mission - Fandom, Mission: Impossible (Movies), Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011), Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)
Genre: Benji is sad, Brandt is totally betting on when they get together with Luther, Ethan has a super secret super agent smile, Ethan is Batman, F/M, Luther knows better than Brandt, M/M, Slash, Slow Burn, benji has a crush, he is also a geek, it melts hearts and panties, posing as boyfriends, tags to come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:37:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4896643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistaken_exchange/pseuds/Mistaken_exchange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benji's abstract hero worship finally meets the physical embodiment of it. Or in other words, here is Mission: Impossible through Benji's point of view. Slow burn, starts in MI3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It All Starts Here

**Author's Note:**

> “Being a geek is a great thing. I think we’re all geeks. Being a geek means you’re passionate about something and that defines your uniqueness. I would rather be passionate about something than be apathetic about everything.” –Masi Oka
> 
> Also, this is my new favorite ship, well by new I mean it has been brewing since MI3 and MI5 fanned the flames. Unbeta'd so any mistakes are my own as well as any OOCness.
> 
> There is going to be a little chapter 2 interlude then onward to Ghost Protocol.

_“Being a geek means you’re passionate about something and that defines your uniqueness.”_ This phrase repeats over and over again in his mind as he weaves around co-workers, in what seems to be the endless hallways of this unassuming building, in his arms was a box containing a few Star Trek toys for his new desk. This was the day—his first day, the day he starts his new job at Impossible Mission Force and currently he was lost. Sure there were plenty of people he could ask for directions but he now worked for the Impossible Mission Force, it shouldn’t be impossible to find his desk, but maybe it should. It was after all in the name. When he had graduated from Oxford, he had worked briefly for the police department in a small town before being offered a job at MI6. At MI6 there had been an undercurrent of whispers about an American agent, who had been able to accomplish even the most impossible mission, nothing was too difficult or too farfetched. But he retired to teach now. It had taken some quite a lot digging and some rather impressive hacking, if he did say so himself, to come across the true name of this hero. He rounded the corner, his grip on the box tightening as _”Being a geek means you’re passionate about something and that defines your uniqueness.”_ Looped back in his head as he slammed into a body, the box getting crushed between them before the contents rained down on the floor as he stumbled back but the body stayed right where it had stopped. 

“Sorry!” He immediately knelt down to pick up his figures, as he scrambled he looked up. “ETHAN HUNT!” His voice was high and slightly nasally, his British accent cutting through more heavily than normal. 

The man dressed impeccably in a form fitting sports coat, a pressed white shirt and black dress slacks, this man—Ethan Hunt, blinked as a man he had never met before yelled his name in a crowded hall which momentarily stopped all the conversations and work around them, then tilted his head, none the less he offered the kneeling man a warm smile. 

“It’s no problem. As you seem to know who I am, who are you?” The man scrambled to snatch up his one of his figures and a handful of papers and an odd looking circular blue light with a flat face and cased in metal with a triangle in the middle and shot up to a standing position. He gestured wildly with the Scotty figure caught between his fingers of one hand, his mouth opened and closed and he was sure that the blush was creeping up his neck to his cheeks. The man took a step back then abruptly turned on his heels and ran down the hall, brushing and knocking into his co-workers in his need to be anywhere but here. Ethan stared, motionless before raising an eyebrow as he watched the man trying to escape, tracking him effortlessly through the crowd. When he disappeared completely around a corner, Ethan turned to leave, his shiny black wingtip shoe brushing against a piece of debris. Hunt looked down at the forgotten Captain Kirk figure that was laying discarded at his feet, lost the haste, he smoothly leans down and picks up the figure, turning it over in one hand while leaning back down to pick up the box that held the belongings as he starts walking, he makes a mental note to ask the head of tech services, Elliott, to find the British man with sandy blonde hair and heterochromia, she owned him a favor anyway. 

When the newest employee of IMF finally found his desk, he set the lone Scotty figure, the entrance paperwork and the Arc Reactor on the otherwise standard desk, on top of the desk calendar that he noted was still dated the previous month. He ran a finger over the name plate that greeted him, in stark white letters on a black background it stated his name plainly for all to see ‘Benjamin Dunn’. With a sigh, he drops down into his new chair, it creaks under his weight, and he spins a little from side to side. Out of nowhere the meeting with his hero rushes back to the forefront of his mind. He tries to disguise his audible groan with a cough, it was a feeble attempt. “Bollocks, I’m an such a tosser.” Benjamin says as he hits his head against the desk twice for good measure then notices once again the date was wrong, with his forehead against the desk and his chin against his chest, he tried to curl into himself. He inhaled to ground himself and noticed that there was a light scent that clung to his shirt. It didn’t smell like sterile chemical cleaner or like the soaps in the restrooms or the coffee stand he had passed on the way in. It could only be Ethan’s cologne that lingered on his shirt. He swallows and tries to push away the rising tide of fresh embarrassment, he sits back up and can't stop himself from reaching down to pull his shirt up to his nose to get a better smell, to try to commit it to memory even though it was already dissipating. Dropping his shirt, he grabs the bottom of the calendar and rips off last month in one yank. He crumples it up and drops it into the trash before reaching out to set Scotty up by the computer monitor and moves the Arc Reactor on the desk by his name plate. It's only when he reaches to place Kirk by Scotty does it connect that he was missing and he almost wants to groan again because if the figure wasn’t here, it clearly had to still be in the hall where he bumped into Ethan and if he got up to go look for it there was a chance that he might run into him again and there is only so much embarrassment one man can take in a day. It’s like tripping and eating dirt in front of Batman. 

In an effort to distract himself from the mortification he still feels, he flicks on the computer to start actually doing the job he was hired for. With the distraction of work, he passed most of his day, speed entering the data he was given. In between the morning and lunch, he had completed the pile of work that had been waiting for him before he arrived that morning, so in the late afternoon as he feels boredom begin to creep in on him, he begins to push against the firewalls installed on the computer, rewriting and rerouting them when no one was looking. Lines and lines of computer code trailed across the screen as his fingertips raced across the keyboard, it was a very real possibility that IMF would have a very real problem with what he was doing, the information was ‘classified’ for a reason, after all, but this is what had gotten him noticed by IMF in the first place, so would it be a surprise to them? It’s basically what he was hired for, so they shouldn't be surprised. He clicked through the screens, checking to see if his downloads had finished. Seeing that they hadn't he minimized all the screens and locked the computer before standing to make his way to a soda machine he had seen earlier in the hall. He brushed his hand against the wall as he walked, pausing to use the restroom, which was far too bright in his opinion, even in the limited time he was there the florescent lights on the chrome made his eyes ache for his glasses. He finished his business, washed his hands and went to the soda machine to select whatever the first soda on the row was, he wasn’t particularly fond of soda but he had forgotten his lunch in his rush out of the apartment this morning and had to already backpedaled once for the figures for his desk, he wasn’t going back a second time for food and risk being late. In hindsight, it was a poor choice on his part because if he didn't have his figures he wouldn't have made an idiot of himself in front of Ethan. He thinks gloomily.

Dunn makes his way back to his desk, the screens were still locked but sitting on the dozen or so closed manila packets with the IMF logo embossed on them was his missing Captain Kirk figure and a note. The black ink was jarring on the white paper after his trip to the restroom, but he felt his face heating up as he read it. ‘You dropped this. –E.H.’ He smiled a little and glanced around the room, finding no trace of the man, he set Kirk beside Scotty before reaching into his desk for the satchel he carried for a small framed picture of his friends from high school, outside the first pub of the Golden Mile, at the time, he believed that he would always be young and beautiful and life could never be better than in that moment. Well, look at him now. He slid out the back and tucked the note from Ethan against the back of the photo before sliding the cardboard back into place and setting it by the phone. Tucking the bag back into his desk with one hand, he unlocked the computer and began skimming through the ‘classified’ data he now had access to. But none of it was really that interesting, which in itself, was a disappointment. He opened his soda and took a sip as he skimmed he came across a new mission, a rescue of a missing agent, file for Ethan and his team, noting that Luther Stickell would be a part of the team, the man who had interviewed him with the head of the department, he glanced at the location information and made a face when he saw it was in Germany. The mission itself wasn't meant to start until Luther and another team had finished stealing some data from an India company server that would prove useful for the German mission. As he was reading over details and schematics for buildings he'd never see, the phone on the corner of the desk let out a shrill ring and he jumped then cursed himself under his breath, how could he be a field agent and jump at the sound of a phone _in an office building_? He snatches up the phone on the second ring and brings it to his ear right as he realizes that almost all of the office is out for the night. 

“Uh..Hello?” _Smooth, Benjamin._ He speaks into the receiver and twirls a pen between his fingertips. After a moment of silence filled with keystrokes a deep voice responses. 

“It’s Luther, Benny, I need a favor.” More keystrokes. 

“Oh! Sure, sure! What's up?” His boss was calling him for help, _how did he even know I am still here?_ Dunn spotted the camera that had moved to face him on the wall. _Oh._

“I need you to access the feed I'm on and reroute the information through the secure underground server and feed it to the Russian satellite then back to me. I don't have the equipment here to do it.” The pen he was twirling between his fingers drops to the calendar with a dulled thud. 

“Oh, is that all?” he can't help but shoot back as he starts pulling the information and hacking into first Luther's computer then to the remote server. 

“I know you can do it, don't think I haven't seen what you've been up to today. I personally programmed those firewalls and they notify me whenever anyone tries to hack through them. Though you are the first to succeed.” Luther says as he waits for the data to stream off his computer. 

“Terribly sorry, I will slip the code to notify you next time.” Benny says, not at all sounding apologetic, as he feeds the information to the Russian satellite then begins to feed it back to Luther's computer. 

There is a rumble of a laugh on the line, which Benjamin is happy with himself for getting since he thought Luther was a bit of a stuffed shirt when he was interviewed. “Of that I have no doubt. Thanks.” the line clicks dead and Dunn chuckles to himself before hanging up the phone. He stands then and pushed in his seat with his foot as he stretches and waves to the camera in case Luther was still watching. He smirked again as the camera reset to its normal position after that and pulled out his satchel to leave. He cast one last look at the picture on his desk and smiled “I could learn to like it here.” He says as he turns to leave, clicking off the lights on his way out, the ghostly glow of the computer monitors was the last thing he saw before the door swung shut behind him. 

Once on the curb, he began the long walk towards the bus terminal. He would need to get a car soon once he saved a little money from his paychecks but with the amount of money IMF paid him, he was sure that he could have it paid off in no time. He eyed the sky above him and frowned a little at the clouds, he had enough rain in England to last him a life time but it looked like he would be in store for some more soon. The bus terminal was a brightly lit oasis in the otherwise dim street, he felt the first light spray of rain and hurried to get into the station before it let loose a truly impressive amount of rain in just a short amount of time. He watched it patter against the glass, listening to the quiet sounds of people waiting to go home. 

Benjamin reached into his satchel and pulled out the sleek black tablet he carried with him, pressing the little flat button in the middle of the bottom of the screen, the screen blinked awake, displaying a lock pattern and a finger print scanner along with a bright IMF background. It wasn’t that IMF had given him the tablet but when he had heard that he had gotten accepted and hired, he couldn’t help but make all his backgrounds something to do with the organization. He quickly unlocked the device and pulled up an app he had been working on that would allow him to backdoor into communication towers. He entered a few more lines of code that he had had running through his head today when he wasn’t thinking about his missed opportunity to make a good impression on Hunt, saving it, he tweaked a few more lines but quickly growing bored. Glancing up at the clock, he noticed he still had twenty or so minutes before the bus was scheduled to show up, so he really had thirty minutes to blow because the 24 bus was frequently late. 

He glanced side to side to see if anyone was close as he reached a hand into his bag to retrieve a pair of earbuds, he continued to glance as he plugged them in, satisfied that no one was close enough or appear to care about that he was doing, he turned his eyes back to the tablet and opened another app, listed as ‘Turbo Ninjas’ and tapped in his credentials, once he was granted access he opened a second app to put in lines and lines of seemingly nonsense data before hitting enter and returning to ‘Turbo Ninjas’. A search bar now lay in the game and he glanced around him once more before entering ‘Ethan Hunt’. The searching emblem stayed for quite a few moments longer than it ever does but then faithfully, hundreds of hits appear on his screen. He organized the types of hits by type of content and looked around once more before clicking on a video simply titled ‘02’05’10’ the video feed started with Ethan tied to a post, bare chested and with his arms chained to the ceiling above his head it was easy to watch the slow rise and fall of his chest, not that he was watching that, because why would he? 

A man entered from the left, speaking what could be Russian, Ethan watched him with a smirking expression, his eyes daring and confident and the man moved in front of Ethan then, blocking him from the camera view. Benny instantly knew exactly what was going to happen and tapped out of the video, he couldn’t watch him be tortured. Luckily, a little old man moved to sit next to him and Benny tapped the screen in both top corners to close everything, displaying a decoy background of a girl in a bikini. The old man chuckled to himself when he saw it and Benjamin couldn’t help but think that was odd and slightly off-putting. 

“Where are you off to, son?” The man asks conversationally, looking at the screen for a moment longer before looking up at Benjamin with startling focus. 

“Uh..um..Home?” He couldn’t say why he stuttered, it was just an old man, and he could probably fight an old man if he had to. He risked a glance around the terminal and noticed that it had emptied in the minutes he was browsing through the app. 

“I see. I see. Good, no straying to find the ladies.” The man said with a laugh as he fixed his brown suit, the cuffs riding up a little to display his wrists. 

Dunn swallowed. “No, nope, no ladies for me.” He said a might too quickly. 

The man nods and shakily stands. “You have good night, son.” He says with his back to Benny. 

“Oh, yes, sir, you too.” He nods and drops the tablet in his bag and nearly runs out of the terminal as soon as he sees the bus pulled up, rain be damned. 

Benny scrambled to get his card into the machine, sneaking peeks over his shoulder, no one appeared to be following him so he took a deep breath, slid his card. He tucked it in his pocket as he walked to the back of the bus, head down but eyes scanning the windows. 

The next three days came and went and to his chagrin he found himself standing in the hall at the same time every day to see if he would run into Ethan again, it didn’t happen. But he tried not be feel disappointed about that, after all Ethan was training agents now and wasn’t always in the office, he sighed and returned to his desk. Almost immediately his phone rang and he cleared his throat and picked up the receiver. 

“Benjamin Dunn.” He says smoothly, picking up a pen in case he needed to write down whatever the person on the might need him to do. He clicked it slowly, repeatedly. 

“Benjamin. It’s Ethan.” 

Ben tried not to audibly gasp into phone. “Ethan! Hunt. I mean, Agent Hunt.” He clears his throat. “H..hi…can I.. How can I help you?” He says as he tries not to give into the urge to smash his face into his desk for his smooth delivery. 

In spite of the death of his mentee he couldn’t help the amused feeling that creeped over him. There was an audible smirk in his voice. “Ethan is fine. I have some fried hard drives for you to look at, I need to know if you can pull anything off them.” 

“Yeah, no, absolutely, shouldn’t be a problem.” Benjamin dropped the pen and pressed his hand to his face in mortification. 

“Be there in five.” Ethan still sounds like he’s smirking and disconnects the call. 

Benny hangs up the phone and runs his hand down his face. He glances around his desk and begins to hastily clean up the surface. _Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Ethan’s coming. And he wants my help! My help! Ethan needs me! Me!_ Almost to the dot, five minutes later, Ethan waltzes into the room, in his arms was the box Benjamin realized was the one he had abandoned that first day, his hair sticking up in random spikes with drying blood from the cuts on his face. His eyes looked distant though even as he tried to keep a casual air about him, his movements were stiffer than normal. 

Benjamin resisted the urge to jump up and tend to him, but just barely. Instead he asked the moment he was close enough. 

“Are you alright?” The tone was quiet, concerned. He eyed the box in his arms and realized it was his. 

“It was the only box I had right off hand.” Ethan says as a way to dodge the question. 

Benny pulled a face at the avoidance but couldn’t help the slight curl of his lips. He accepted the box without even opening it. “Give me two days. I will get you everything I can off.” 

Ethan shook his head. “You have one and call me as soon as it is done.” He offered him a small smile, his green eyes holding a bit of warmth. 

“I can do that.” The thought that he didn’t have Ethan’s phone number crossed his mind just as a piece of paper was pushed into his hand. 

“Thank you for this, Benjamin. I owe you.” 

With that Ethan swept out of the room, seemingly drawing all the air out with him, and Benjamin dropped down into his seat, cradling the box. He took a deep breath, catching the very faint smell of sweat and blood in the air by his desk, he lifted the lid and tried not to groan at the sight of all the burned up, destroyed drives awaiting him. 

“When he said fried, I thought he meant, just burned out. Not completely—“ He slips his hand in the box and pulls out one with a hole. “This one has a hole in it!” The man frowned but started pulling out the drives to lay them on the desk, after he got everything pulled off, he would need to take them to the lab for processing and filing, just so everything was going through the proper channels. Even if out of order. 

Benjamin took pictures of each drive and labeled them with a thick black marker, after he grabbed a manila folder and placed the glossy 8x10s in them and set to work attaching each drive to his computer and booting them through its hard drive. He doesn’t look up until hours and hours later when the office has cleared out for the night again. There was still the information he had pulled off to shift through but the drives no longer served a purpose, their payload spent. He packed them back up, wrote the codename of the mission on the top flap and the date before locking his computer, he stands and starts off to the lab to drop them off. Since it was closed he slid it into the door and got away with no questions asked. 

On his way back to his desk, he stops by the soda machine to buy the first one on the row again. He would need the caffeine, it was going to be a long night of data tracking and there wasn’t even a guarantee that there would be anything useful in the partial emails he recovered. “I owe you.” He repeats to himself, getting a confused look from a co-worker who was also pulling an all-nighter. “Oh, don’t mind me.” He says with a laugh and quickly finds his way back to his desk. 

Shortly after sunrise, he comes across the invitation for Owen Davian to come to the Vatican. Benjamin couldn’t keep the smile spreading across his lips, he had something to help Ethan. The phone was in his hand before he even realized he had it, he leaned a bit to punch in the number Ethan gave him, Ethan’s number, that Ethan had given him, Ethan had given him his personal number, Ethan Hunt asked him a favor. He took a deep breath to contain his excitement just as the man on the other end picked up. 

“Ethan, I have something.” He tries to monotone. 

“Yeah, be right there.” Ethan says before hanging up. 

_Doesn’t that man sleep?_ Benjamin thinks to himself as he cleans up the flakes of metal and paint off his desk as he waits for Ethan to show up. What he wasn’t expecting was Luther to come with him, not that he was disappointed, nope not at all. 

“Benji, what have you got?” Ethan asks as he stands close to his side, and Benji has to lean back in his seat to put some space between them, to get out of the cloud of his cologne. Ethan Hunt gave me a nickname! He tries not to visibly react to the name and the only way he can do that is to be flippant and talkative. 

“Well, these hard drive platters are just fried.” 

“Yeah.” Ethan says expectantly, watching him with sharp focus, like he was the only thing in the room. 

”You know, they made a mess of them. It's just like...” He pulls out the pictures of the drives and begin to flip through them, just to make his point and to have something to do with his hands. “There's holes in them and stuff. And it's got scorched all the way through. And then... Look, this one's got a hole in it and stuff. I can't believe. I can't even look at it.” He continues though he can see Ethan take a deep breath and try not to grin at his side. 

“Benji. Did you recover anything?” There was that nickname again, he tried not to grin at himself. 

“Oh. Yes. Yes.” Benji says as he closes the folder. “Despite the aforementioned conditions of the hard drives you brought back, I managed to recover portions of two dozen e-mail files.” He notices Ethan is still watching him so he points at the screen to direct his attention, for a beat longer Ethan continues to stare at him before his eyes flick to the screen. “Also made what I believe to be a thoroughly promotion-worthy breakthrough. Your Mr. Davian is going to arrive in Rome the day after tomorrow and attend a function at one Vatican City.” 

“What the hell is Davian doing at the Vatican?” Luther asks over him to Ethan, and Benji would swear on every religious text known to man that he didn’t forget that he was standing there because of the heady cloud of Ethan’s cologne and close proximity. 

“It's all got to do with the "Rabbit's Foot.”” He says and glances at Luther to remind himself the very large man was standing to his right. 

“Rabbit's Foot?” Ethan asks, his arms folded and looking away from the screen to Benji. 

“Yeah, well, I'm assuming it's like a code word—“His annoying nervous habit of talking with his hands was starting to come out. “For something he's about to sell to an unspecified buyer, for $850 million, by the way. Or maybe it's not a code word. Maybe it's just a really, really expensive bunny appendage.” Ah, flippancy, his mother would box his ears. 

“You have no idea what it is?” Ethan asks him and he tries not to feel a beat of disappointment that he cannot provide this information for the man, especially when he moves away from him to stand by Luther. 

“It's interesting. I used to have this professor at Oxford, okay? Dr. Wickham, his name was, and he was like this massive, fat guy.” _Benji make a point._ “You know, huge, big guy. We used to call him...You know... Well, I won't tell you what we used to call him.” _God, any point at all._ “He taught biomolecular kinetics and cellular dynamics, and he used to sort of scare the underclassmen with this story about how the world would eventually be eviscerated by technology.” _I will buy you a blowjob if you stop talking right now_. “You see, it was inevitable that a compound would be created, which he referred to as the "Anti-God." It was like an accelerated mutator, a sort of, you know, like an unstoppable force of destructive power that would just lay waste to everything. To buildings and parks and streets and children and ice cream parlors, you know?” _Why are you still talking? Please stop talking._ “So whenever I see, like, a rogue organization, willing to spend this amount of money on a mystery tech, I always assume it's the Anti-God. End-of-the-world kind of stuff, you know? But, no, I don't have any idea what it is. I was just speculating.” _Thank you._ Benji wants to be angry at himself for rambling, there was no real point of it, except that he couldn’t seem to focus when Ethan was looking at him, and he was sure Luther knew he was having that problem. Even if he didn’t he probably could have assumed. Still, Ethan had listened to his whole outburst and seemed to take something from it, so it wasn’t all bad. 

“Did you brief Musgrave on this?” Ethan asks intently. 

_Please stop looking at me like I have the cure for cancer or I am full of candy and you want to eat me. I can’t focus._ “Who, me? No, not yet.” _Smooth, Benji, real smooth._

“Good. Don't.” Ethan moved to his other side again, he looked to Luther. 

“What?” There was a slight ting of whining to his voice. 

“Don't tell anyone about this.” He looked at Benji when he said it but then back to Luther. 

“This took me ages.” But he knew he would accept what Ethan was asking of him, he just wanted to say it. 

“If something goes wrong with the operation, I want Musgrave to have deniability.” He says his eyes trained on Luther who looks exasperatedly slightly. “That's great work, Benji.” He says to Benji with a warm voice and a smile and to his complete surprise a reassuring hand on his shoulder that Benji would not be feeling the heat of for long minutes after, nope not at all, not a bit. 

With that Ethan moves to walk away. “What operation? That look in your eye is a pain in my ass. You know that, right?” Luther yells over Benji then sighs when Ethan shoots him a stern look with a slightly challenging undertone. “You did good, kid.” Luther says with a smile for him. 

_My, so many compliments today._ “Thank you, Luther, I am just glad I could help at all.” He says honestly. 

Luther offers him a smile and follows Ethan out, leaving Benji to his own devices once again. 

When he comes into the office two days later he is surrounded by whispers of Ethan Hunt being a traitor. How he broke out after being captured on the bridge and is currently missing. He was trying not to be concerned, this was Ethan Hunt they were talking about, but there was a creeping dread in him when his team had went missing, then returned and was captured. He had heard vaguely once in passing that Ethan’s wife had been taken. Still, it wasn’t until half-eleven the next day that his phone rang and he sighed. 

“Benjamin Dunn.” He tries to keep the mild boredom and worry from his thoughts of Ethan out of his tone but he’s not sure if he’s successful. 

“Benji, it's me.” Came the voice he had been thinking about and in surprise he almost drops the receiver. 

“Ethan.” His voice becomes mildly panicked. “What? No. Really?” Benji he scans the office and moved to obscure himself a little by a shelf. 

“Listen to me very carefully.” _I’m always listening, Ethan but this is mad._ “I need your help. I need to trace the location of the last call made from this phone.” Benji can hear movement in the background of Ethan’s phone, like he’s moving around a room. He shakes the cable on his phone for something to do with his hands. 

“Look, no. Ethan. Shush.” He brings hand to his mouth to actually shush him even though the man cannot see him. “They're looking... Everyone's looking for you. Everyone I know. They're looking...” More movement in the background and the feeling that Ethan is not even listening to him. “I just looked it up. Okay, you're on Interpol's most wanted list. And that, by the way, is a spectacular list to be on. Whatever happened, I'm sorry, but I'm hanging up now right now.” He doesn’t even make the motion to hang up the phone because he knows he wouldn’t, couldn’t leave him after he said he needed him. 

“Benji, I don't have time for this. What do you think happened? I've been set up.” There is frustration in his tone, frustration directed at him and at whatever situation was happening on the other end of the line. Benji hated hearing that directed at him. 

“I think I like my job. Okay? A lot. All right? And you know they're gonna be taping this call.” Benji reasons but anymore protest is cut off by Ethan. 

“And you know you can erase it. I'm giving you the number right now. Are you ready?” 

“All right. Just hang on.” He snatches up a pen and bites off the cap before spitting it out and says “I'm gonna lose my citizenship because of this, you know.” 

“7-3-4-4-2-5-6-4-3-6-7.” Ethan’s voice feeds him the number as he scrambles to pen it down. 

“Okay. Wait. Okay. Hold the line, please.” He tries to sound like this is just a normal business call, not like he was helping a fugitive, _Hey Benji, want to go play in traffic?_ He thinks to himself as he tries to nonchalantly walk across the space to the computer. He snatches back up the phone. “Are you there?” 

“Yeah.” Ethan responds, still sounded distracted and Benji couldn’t help but be relieved he was alright. “Okay.” He responds as he types the number into the computer, his nervous talking starting to show its ugly head. “Maybe we can share a jail cell together, you know? If this all goes tits up, which it will. The location of that number is Shanghai.” He mumbles, it almost doesn’t matter what he says, he knows Ethan is barely listening to him. “There, I just told you. Shanghai. I've just aided and abetted an enemy of the state. Fantastic. Thank you.” He waves his free hand at the monitor, knowing he was going to have to scrub all of this from IMF’s mainframe. 

“Am I close? Use this phone to track my location.” Ethan begins to sound anxious, like a live wire. 

“Oh, you're there. Well, you're close.” Benji says with slight confusion in his voice, _Why was he in Shanghai?_

“How close?” Ethan asked as he started moving again. “Is the signal in the building?” He pauses, his voice slightly hopeful. 

“No, no, no. It isn't coming from there.” He traces the map with his finger. “It's in a building one mile to the northeast.” 

“Benji, lead me to the signal.” Ethan says with all quiet determination, as he starts running, his breath coming as quiet puffs into the mouth piece for a moment before he moves the phone out of curtsey. 

Benji will be hearing that tone and that breathing for a long time. To distract himself from an ill-timed image of Ethan shirtless in the dark, he settles for flippant. “There is one thing. What the hell are you doing in Shanghai?” 

“I'll tell you when I see you.” It sounds like clay is shifting and clattering under him before some shouting in Chinese reaches him. 

“What you...” It sounded like something was breaking. “You need to go north. Okay, there's a bridge. Get to it, cross it. Make a left. Go three-quarters of a mile along the river.” He hopes his voice sounds calm. 

“I got it. I got it.” He sounds breathless, and all he can hear after is running, the sounds of a busy place and Chinese. So he watches the green dot race across the map on his screen. 

“Good, good. That's right. Keep going. Keep going. Make your next left and then the next one. And then follow that down 1,000 yards.” Benji hopes he sounds reassuring at least. 

“A thousand yards.” Ethan repeats then drops the phone again as Benji keeps his eyes trained on the map. “Okay. Okay, okay. Okay, okay. Left. Left. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Keep going. Keep going. Okay, now look...” He sees Elliott start to approach and he offers a smile. “Hiya. Hi.” He watches her go but can just barely hear Ethan yelling into the phone. 

“Benji, where? Benji? Which way do I go?” His tone is rushed. 

“Now take a right.” He pauses when he hears a loud horn in the background and hopes Ethan is alright, though he suspects he’d have heard yelling if not. “Okay. Go down, left.” 

“Left? I'm going left.” Benji is flooded with relief that he turned out he was fine. 

“Good, good. It's in the second building on your left. The signal bearing's plus or minus three meters from the northeast corner.” He says gently. 

“I owe you.” Ethan says determinately and hangs up the phone. 

_So many favors I am gathering from Ethan_. Benji thinks as he hangs up the phone and begins to pull the information off the mainframes and call logs. It was a relatively simple task, all things considered, and it provided him something to do besides worry about a man, who frankly didn’t need his concern, not really. It wasn’t until late the next day as he was coming back from lunch that he was surprised by Ethan’s warm body encasing him into a bear hug, almost like he was waiting around the corner for him. 

“I can’t thank you enough.” He mutters into his hair. “Because of you, Julia is safe.” 

Benji murmurs into his chest, momentarily paralyzed by the heat and scent of the man surrounding him. He shook himself and wrapped his arms around him in return. “Ethan, it was nothing, you did all the work.” He says gently once he can think clearly again. 

Ethan seems to be having none of that as he leans back from him, his arms still around his shoulders. “Benji, I mean that, if you had hung up, if you couldn’t trace…” He trailed off and laid a hand on his cheek. “Thank you.” His voice full of warmth and sincerity, Benji noted the silver ring on his hand. “I would be honored to work with you, if you ever decide to take on field work.” 

Benji swallows, they were too close, he was too warm, and they were still touching. He panics. “So a panda ring?” He says as his brain short circuits. Ethan looks confused for a moment as that was definitely not the response he thought he was going to get. The man steps back though and all at once Benji wants to snatch him back while shoving him further away and fleeing. “What you don’t like it?” He says teasingly. 

“No, it’s very…it’s very chic, very secret agent.” He says sarcastically which makes Ethan laugh. 

“Come on, I want you to meet Julia.” Ethan finally breaks all the contact points between them and leads them to the main room where everyone had gathered talking to Julia while Ethan went to find Benji. 

“And this is him.” Ethan says as he pushes Benji in front of the smiling dark haired woman, who was just stunning and visibly perfect for Ethan. 

Julia smiles, her whole face lights up. “Benji?” 

“That’s me.” He says as she hugs him. “Thank you, for everything.” She says sincerely, Benji watches over her head as the Brassel pulls Ethan away, they were talking quietly between them when she pulls away. “I didn’t do anything special but I am glad you are safe, Ethan was very upset when you were taken.” He says smoothly. 

She looks over her shoulder at him, a slight secret smile on her face. “I feel like I know him a lot better now.” 

Ethan returns to the group and wraps an arm around her, holding her just like that for a moment before sliding his hand down her arm to grasp her hand in his. “Ready?” 

Everyone says their goodbyes and Benji watches Julia and Ethan depart and their small group splits up now that the excitement is over and Benji returns to his desk, trying very hard not to think about their honeymoon and the way they looked at each other and the way Ethan had looked at him earlier. He settles in expecting to fail at this endeavor. He also pulls up the file to put in his resume for field service and to take the exam, because no matter what, he hasn’t felt so alive as when Ethan needed him and he wants Ethan to keep needing him. 


	2. This Feels Like A Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief intrude to set up Ghost Protocol.

Everything had worked out just fine, just another day in the life of an IMF agent. Benji sighed, Ethan had recently returned from his honeymoon with Julia and she really was a very lovely woman, Benji knew this, logically, illogically he hated her but couldn't quite place why. He was spending his lunch hour dragging noodles around on his plate while despondently staring off into the distance with one hand propping up his head. In his mind, he had to say, he looked rather dashing in an aloof sort of way, he should be beating women and men off him, the universe must be out of sync for this not to be happening. Another swirl around his plate and his fork scratched across the porcelain causing him to wince, his fork falling to the plate with a clatter. In all his staring and until he dropped his fork, he had not realized Ethan was sitting across from him, watching him stare off and be aloof. He couldn't help his jump and small gasp. “Bloody Hell!” Benji says as he makes a show of grabbing his chest. “How long have you been sitting there?”

Ethan blinks slowly, his lips pulling as he tries to fight off a smile. “Benji, I've been here all along.” He says in the best good-natured tones he could muster. “Don’t you remember inviting me to lunch?” He is teasing, of course, because Benji would definitely remember doing something like that.

“Ha ha.” Benji replies sarcastically. “That’s what I missed most about you when you were away, your scathing wit.” Benji’s tone is dry which makes the smile Ethan had been fighting finally win. 

“You missed me?” Ethan says, feeling like he had won this little conversational battle between them.

Benji sat up straighter in his chair, inwardly cursing himself about his ability to put his foot in his mouth. “Absolutely not. Barely noticed you were gone.” He amends to which Ethan gives his best offended face. 

Shaking his head he turns the conversation back to the reason he was here. “I wanted to thank you again, for Julia, you didn’t have to help me. You didn’t know I wasn’t actually a traitor.” Benji cuts off Ethan here with a “I knew you weren’t” and Ethan looks momentarily pleased considering how many times the IMF has branded him as one. “But you couldn’t have known that for sure and you took a great risk in helping me so thank you. But I need another favor.”

Benji picks back up his fork to twirl his pasta around it. “Sure, Ethan. Whatever I can do.” Ethan pushes a plain tan folder to him, it was rubber banded shut with a few lose tips of paper sticking out the side and top.

“I need you to destroy, remove or recode the information contained in this folder from all databases, public, private nationally and internationally. And no questions as to what it is for, the Director knows, so you will not be violating any rules by doing this for me.” While Ethan is talking, Benji had already began to reach out to grab the folder. He gives it the once over then shrugs.

“This shouldn’t take too long, give me 51 hours.” He says and only a half hour later is regretting his words and the absolute certainty he had said them with. He really had to start opening the information Hunt gave him in the future. He was clicking through the files listed on the unassuming white sheet of paper in front of him, what was strange about the files and information contained inside of them was that all the names had been changed recently but he could not access the older version of the files. However, all the names had changed from something to ‘Jewels Wanaka.’ Which sounded like a fake name if he ever read one, and he had read a ton of them, but the woman was only listed as a nurse, with brown hair and brown eyes, recently married but the name of the husband was missing and only entered in as ‘deceased’. Which Benji also thought was odd but he had given Ethan his word, no questions while he worked so he wouldn’t ask, but he could certainly think about it.

Benji sighed then flipped the sheet over to continue pulling the information from the national and international databases, it seemed off that a woman who was just a nurse would have files so deep in other places, MI6, белые колготки, ISIS, any terror organization he could access had files of this woman and her ‘deceased’ husband as well as any organization he couldn’t access but did anyway had them. But just as dawn, of the second day, was brushing against the sky outside the window closest to him, he knew he had dropped her out of all the national and international organizations.  
Yawning, he turns the clock on this desk to face him then cringes at the time. He leans down to rest his chin on his crossed arms in front of his keyboard. He didn’t mean to doze off, but when he woke an hour later, a coat he didn’t recognize was laid across his back and someone was clicking away on his computer. Benji groaned gently and sat up, he placed one hand on his back as he stretched a little, knocking the jacket that was covering him down to rest behind him on the chair.

“Morning, Sunshine.” Ethan drawls but keeps his eyes on the computer in front of him, checking his work, Benji knows.

“Morning, Starshine.” Benji retorts without thinking, his voice sleep rough and his eyes sleep heavy.

“You did great work, Benji.” Ethan says with pride in his voice that makes Benji sit up a little straighter.

“I take it you won't take any of my questions?”

“No. I can't. But you helped in a big way, you'll know soon enough.” Ethan says cryptically, but after being up for two days, Benji couldn't be bothered to read into his tone.

“I probably will.” He yawns out as he pulls back up the jacket to cover his shoulders. “Why are you here so early? I said 51 hours, its only been..” He eyes the clock. “..51 hours.” He coughs. “Don’t mind me.” he mutters quietly with an embarrassed flush which only darkens when the smell of Ethan's deodorant and the light smell of stale sweat and blood brushed over his awakened senses.

Ethan chuckles quietly to himself, seemingly enjoying a private joke. “Benji, I never mind you when you're around.”

Benji who is usually very good at off the cuff remarks when he is embarrassed, lets the moment pass because he's still trying to process the jacket draped across him. “I don't...why?”

Ethan side eyes him. “You looked cold.” as if that's all that mattered.

“Thank you, Ethan.”

“I have to go on a mission to uncover something ‘very classified’ in the next few days. Hang on to it, I like that jacket and Julies has a tendency to misplace it.” Benji thinks Ethan must be in a really good mood since he did air quotations over very classified.

Benji blinks, then blinks again and obviously still hasn't processed it because he sits quiet for another couple of seconds before Ethan asks if it’s okay. “NO! No..its..I will take good care of it.” Benji says confidently but is mentally kicking himself for his idiotic delivery.

Ethan nods seemingly not noticing anything amiss. “I see you are thinking about taking the field agent exam.” He says offhandedly the clicking of the keyboard is the only sound between them for a few moments as the office had not started to file in yet.

“Oh, well, I was...thinking about it, sure, but I don't know if I am.”

“I can help.” Ethan’s words are cutting into the tail end of Benji’s. Then more slowly he adds. “I trained agents for the field exam, it'd be my pleasure.”

“I..” Benji pushes away from the desk, his hand still closed around the top of the jacket. “I..” he takes a step back, Ethan is watching him closely, waiting. Benji turns and darts away, moving surprisingly agile for a man who's only had an hour's worth of sleep in two days. Ethan watches his coat disappear around a corner.

“Was it something I said?” He says to himself in the now empty office.

Benji is getting coffee with Ethan's coat across his shoulders again when he realizes exactly how that looked and he groans out loud causing the people in line to look at him in curiosity. Sighing, he knew he only needed to get out of the building and he could avoid seeing Ethan again. _He said he was being assigned a case. So, it should be easy to avoid seeing him for the next few days._

He's stirring cream and sugar into his coffee when the awful thought occurs to him. _But he could die and our last meeting was him offering to help and me running away like an arse._

So, he takes his coffee and wanders around trying to find Ethan. It wasn't until 45 minutes later that he runs into Luther who mentions that Ethan has already left for the day to prepare for his next job.

“Bollocks.” Benji says under his breath, Luther looks up from his computer with an eyebrow raised and a curious look on his face.

“I can give him a call if it’s important.” Luther says, already moving to pull his phone out of his pocket.

_Me, call Ethan?_ Benji allows his mind to wander to a reality that they were close enough that they would talk outside of work. He shakes his head. “No, no. I’ll catch up with him later.”

“Alright, man, whatever you say.” Luther says but Benji could feel the dismissal in his words so Benji took the hint and exited Luther’s office.

Benji sighs and rubs the fabric of Ethan’s coat between his thumb and forefinger. He makes his way back to his desk, ambling because he has no pressing work to do. Sitting up against the picture of his friends from back home in front of the First Post pub, in messy scrawl from fingers broken too many times was the message

“I think you should do it.- E.H.  
P.S. Who are they?”

Benji reached out to grab the note, which forced the coat to slide of his shoulders and into his chair. He couldn’t be arsed to catch it as he held the little white square of paper in the palm of his cupped hands. Ethan thought he could be a field agent. He certainly couldn’t be blamed for the dumb smile that spread across his face and lit up his eyes.

He really had no choice now. He had to do it. He reached out to grab the picture from his desk and slid this note into the back like he did the first one. Benji fell into his seat, so dreamy that he didn’t hear his phone ring for the first two rings.

“Benjamin Dunn.” He says as he snatches up the receiver.

“This is June Williams up in training. Agent Hunt has requested a copy of the field agent technician’s guides to be pulled and set aside for you. He also requested that we call as soon as they were made available for you.” The woman sounded bored, like there was a hundred other things to do and she was wasting her time even still being on the phone.

“Oh yes, of course, I’ll be right there.” Benji stands and begins to step away from his desk before pausing to grab the coat again. After all Ethan left it in his care for the next few days.

He folds the jacket over one arm and can’t help but be pleased with himself for not smiling like a schoolgirl with the captain of the football team’s jersey. But the smell of blood and sweat and Ethan makes him feel comfortable and safe, which is something he’s totally not going to read into, not even a little and certainly not sober and at IMF.

He gets to the training labs and the woman is sitting tall at her desk, but her face holds the same bored expression that her tone did over the phone.

“Good morning, my lady.” He says, forcing more of his accent to be noticeable as he leans on her desk to give her his best bedroom eyes. “You’re looking ravishing today.”

This woman does not look amused with his antics. “Dunn?”

“You remembered.” Benji says with a smile and gets the papers almost thrown at him. “Playing hard to get I see. I like a challenge.” He teases but backs out of the room.

“Yikes.” He can’t help but mutter to himself.

The following day, Benji was spending his lunch hour browsing through the field agent’s exam packet Ethan had been so kind to procure for him, even after he ran off like a loon. However, after reading the same page four times, he began to click away on his computer, curious as to the mission Ethan was on.

There wasn’t much in the way of information only that it was supposed to last three days, and that there was a formal party that evening that his team would be attending. Benji checked the time, and tried to think about what the time would be in Finland. He shook himself when he realized that noon here was seven in the evening there, which was after the party had started.

Benji glanced around the office, noting that no one was around, he pulled the tablet out of his bag and plugged his headphones in. He opened ‘Turbo Ninjas’ and entered in his credentials. The app granted him access to the mainframe in IMF, he browsed through the current missions before selecting Ethan’s current one and clicked through the technology that had been taken from the agency for the job. Noting the active contact lens cameras and earbud microphones, he opened up the lens camera for Agent Donovan who was watching Ethan waltz around the room with a gorgeous woman in red.

Benji turned up the volume on his tablet and could hear the soft words between them.

“You are a divine dancer.” The woman says, her words accented with amusement and lust. Ethan smiles a brilliant smile and pulls the woman closer to him.

“It’s all about the right partner.” He coos back to her, his mouth by her ear. He looks to Donovan over the woman’s shoulder and Benji can see his eyes shift from dark and heated to sharp and focused as he checks to make sure she’s still in position. Benji feels himself flush for the moment those eyes feel like they are on him, even if they are not, even if none of the team even knew he was watching. He allows himself a moment to think about how it would feel to have Ethan look at him like that, at his most predatory and can’t stop the shiver that runs through him. Ethan’s eyes shift back to cloudy with lust just as he is pulling back to meet the woman’s eyes again.

“I am spoken for.” The woman says but even Benji could hear the lack of conviction in her tone. Benji can’t help but be jealous, this woman doesn’t know Ethan, but she gets to be the focus of all his attention in a room full of beautiful people.  
“Just one night.” Ethan says as he leans forward to claim her lips. Benji leans forward in his chair a little, just as someone grabs the back of his chair and he screams, dropping the tablet to floor, his earbuds getting painfully ripped out of his ears thanks for the motion. It takes him a moment to catch his breath and realize he was still at work.

He takes a deep breath and turns to look at the person behind him. It’s a girl, mousey and quiet but they had had lunch together a few times. “Hello, Helen.”

Helen smiles and brushes a strand of hair from her face, having spooked herself a little by Benji’s little freakout. “Hi Benji, I just wanted to invite you to drinks tonight. It’s going to be me, my sister Caroline, Steven, and Andy.” She says quietly, all of them worked in the office but Steven and Caroline worked the very early or very late shift, depending on how you looked at it.

Benji frowns. “I’d love to, but I already have plans for the evening.” He says, lying through his teeth.

She looks a little crestfallen. “Oh, alright. Maybe another time?’

“Absolutely.” He promises and tries to mean it. She seems to believe it because she offers him a blinding sort of smile and waves as she departs.

He leans under his desk to pick up his tablet. Ethan is still with the woman but they had moved to a secluded area out of the way of the guests, the quiet violin music still an undercurrent in their conversation. 

Benji sighs and closes out of the window. He knew nothing would happen with that woman because of Julia but he still didn’t want to watch it. He tucks the tablet back into his bag and spins around in his chair to clear his head. 

The technician sighs again, feeling adrift, then goes back to the field exam paperwork, an hour or so later, his phone goes off. He pulls it out of his pocket and glances at the message ‘2 new text messages.’ from a phone number and area code he had never seen before. Curious, he unlocks his phone and opens the messages.

“They will ask you to hack through a high security firewall in under 5 minutes.” the message is cut off but the other one picks up “Be prepared for malfunctioning equipment in this run. DR.-EH.”

Benji looks confused because he knows Ethan is on a mission, is with a target, so the fact that he apparently is thinking of him way back here in the states makes him smile and pull the jacket up to his chest. He closes out the messaging app on his phone, normally he'd respond but Ethan had sent along the acronym for ‘Don't Respond' which meant he or the phone would be gone before Benji could even think of a response. Benji shakes his head and stands. His shift was over for the day, so he might as well get out of here since he told Helen that he had plans for the evening. 

The next few days passed in a sort of haze of busyness that Benji found tedious, there was a manic sort of energy underlining the company but he couldn’t find out the reason why, there was no information in his normal channels, but he knew something was going to happen, the question was when. Since it didn’t really concern him that much, he continued to work on his field agent’s exam. Ethan had sent him more texts from unknown numbers with helpful tips and tricks in them. He even received a beat up cracked and rumpled letter in the mail here at IMF in Ethan’s handwriting, apologizing that he couldn’t get a phone but he had to tell him about the last bit of the test. The letter looked like it had been shoved into a pocket and thrown out of a building but knowing Ethan it wasn’t unusual, he was sure that it could be blood on the top corner of the paper. He tried not to think about it, really. He worried enough, his mother always said.

But the office was on lunch now, so Benji took the Xbox controller from his bottom drawer and flipped his computer monitor to display his new ‘Halo’ game. He began to play, becoming engrossed and paid less attention to his surroundings. He didn’t feel the presence walk up behind him as he tried to pull off a complicated rebound shot. “I can make this bloody shot.” Benji says under his breath to himself, as he tries. The shot sending out and hitting the wall before heading back towards him, he had to the move at the last second. 

“I can’t make that shot.” Ethan says at normal volume, making Benji yip, which he will totally deny later, and throw his controller in the air as he tries to scramble and exit all his game all at the same time. Ethan can’t help but laugh as Benji spins around, eyes wide. The controller was falling and he catches the controller before it hits Benji right in the face, offering him a bright sort of smile that Benji had only seen him use on targets in the field. 

Benji looks everywhere but at Ethan. “So, hello, Ethan, how, when did you get back?” he clears his throat and tries to look in control.

Ethan hands back the controller. “I am only back for a few hours, Julia and I are going away for a little while. I just wanted to come by and see you before I go.” He says honestly, he looked beat up and now Benji was sure that that stain on the letter had been blood.

“Are you okay?” He asks quietly, concerned already. 

Ethan offers a mild self-conscious shrug. “I will be, soon.” Benji didn’t like the chill the other man’s demeanor and words gave him.

“Can I help?”

“You already have. I just wanted to say I think you’ll do great at your exam.”

Benji was eying him, suspiciously. “I feel like this is a goodbye.” The words felt like a mistake and the absolute truth at the same time.

“Just for a little while.” When Benji didn’t take the controller back, Ethan reached passed him to set it on his desk. Benji inhaled deeply, getting the familiar scent of the man that had faded from the jacket.

“I forgot your coat at my flat.” He blurts, a soft sort of look crosses Ethan’s face.

“I won’t be needing it, it’ll be warm where we are heading to. Hang on to it, until I get back.” Ethan takes a breath like he’s going to continue but like a shot Benji had stood and threw his arms around the other man.

“Please, be safe.” Benji mutters into his collar.

Ethan blinks slow, confused for a moment, tense with the sudden movement before folding Benji into his arms, patting him once, twice, on his back before stepping away and offering a smile.

“Thanks, Benji. Take care.” And just like that the man was gone, it would be a few weeks but news would trickle into the office that Ethan’s wife had died, and Ethan had killed the men responsible in cold blood and would now be serving a long sentence in a Russian prison. But in that moment, all Benji could think about was if he would see Ethan again.


End file.
